The Yellow Bus at Fifty

Times Square could hardly be called a natural environment, but, on the short walk from the subway to The New Yorker offices, you learn to notice the changing seasons. One harbinger of late spring is the migration of benign swarms of teen-agers along Forty-second Street. They move more slowly than the impatient native species, and in wider rows. If it is a warm day, they may sport matching T-shirts that display hometown pride while making it easier to rejoin the pack in case they get separated.

Fifty springs have passed since Lillian Ross wrote “The Yellow Bus,” which followed the school trip of eighteen students from Indiana. “A couple of the seniors who made the trip live in Stinesville; the others live within a radius of fifteen miles or so, on farms or in isolated houses with vegetable gardens and perhaps a cow or two,” Ross wrote in the August 20, 1960, issue of the magazine.

The Stinesville seniors made most of their decisions—where to eat, what to do—by voting, Ross wrote.

The senior class president, R. (for Reginald) Jay Bowman, was in charge of all of the voting on the trip. A wiry, energetic eighteen-year-old with a crew haircut, he had been president of the class for the past five years.

Jay Bowman still seems to be the class president. Earlier this year, he got in touch with The New Yorker, looking for Lillian Ross. The Bean Blossom Township high school class of 1960 will hold its fiftieth reunion on Friday at Terry’s of Westbury, in Bloomington, about ten miles from Stinesville. Bowman, who married his high-school sweetheart, moved to the Washington, D.C., area, and is retired from the National Security Agency, sent a newsletter (pdf) about what became of his classmates. He also agreed to answer a few questions.

Your bulletin about the class of 1960 mentions the mixed reaction to “The Yellow Bus” in Stinesville. Which camp were you in when the article came out: Offended? Amused? Impressed? And what about how you were portrayed?

I guess you could put me in the slightly amused camp. I was not offended, although I respect those who thought the article portrayed the graduates as rural hicks or yokels. I had no problem with the manner in which I was portrayed. I grew up in the midwest as an Indiana country boy. I was not sophisticated (still not, for that matter) and was certainly in awe of the Big Apple. I was not used to being in large crowds of people who I did not know and who appeared intent on getting somewhere in a hurry and for the most part did not make any eye contact and did not appear to be very friendly. That was certainly different from where I grew up. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the trip and the opportunity to see the sights and sounds of New York. I also appreciated the fact that Ms. Ross took the time to chronicle our class trip in a magazine such as The New Yorker.

How much beyond “The Yellow Bus” do you remember of your senior trip?

At the end of our stay in the city, the classmates noted that we still had some money left over so we took a vote and decided to stop by Niagara Falls on our way back home. Other than that, a lot of trip memories have faded after fifty years.

Am I right to say that, from the biographies in your class bulletin, you seem to have had one of the more cosmopolitan life experiences among members of the class of 1960?

I have had a varied life experience. However, several other classmates have also had a variety of life experiences. For a graduating class of twenty-four, I believe we certainly have had many successful careers. Several went on to college, graduated and took up a career in teaching or nursing or some other profession. Others may not have continued formal education, but had very successful careers in other fields as well. What I am trying to say is that a group of kids from small town Indiana who grew up without a lot of worldly benefits nevertheless have done significant things with their lives and have made a contribution to society that is greater than would have necessarily been anticipated.

How often have you visited New York in the past fifty years?

I have only visited New York City once in the past fifty years. Three years ago, my son, my son-in-law, and I went to the old Yankee Stadium to see it before it would be torn down. We saw a game between the Yankees and the Baltimore Orioles.

Do you now subscribe or have you ever subscribed to The New Yorker?

I am not a subscriber to The New Yorker.

When I asked Bowman what magazines he does subscribe to, he listed Smithsonian, National Geographic, Outdoor Indiana, Birds & Blooms, Scale Rails (“a publication of the National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) of which I am a member”), and TV Guide.

Stinesville, Bowman said, changed a lot in fifty years. On one hand, it’s gotten smaller, but its proximity to Bloomington, home to the state university, means that “some bedroom community aspects have begun to appear.”

And the high school no longer exists; a few years after Lillian Ross’s story appeared, it merged into Edgewood High School, in Ellettsville. Steve Kain, the superintendent of the Richland Bean Blossom Schools, told us that “because of the size of the senior class (200) and other reasons the senior trip is now a one day excursion to Holiday World at Santa Claus, Indiana.” He added, “School buses are still yellow.”